A murder at 5th and Carpenter around 9 p.m., in addition to being awful, is simply crazy.

The city will not be able to sustain whatever economic and housing revival there may be with murders happening in what are supposedly its safest neighborhoods.

I am a little confused regarding this thread. Was there, indeed, also an armed robbery at 6th and Fitzwater? Was anyone injured in that one?

I was walking in the neighborhood this weekend and ventured onto Carpenter, a street I ususally don't travel. It dawned on me that, even though I was only a couple of blocks from my place, there was a different atmosphere. (The only time I parked on Carpenter, maybe a year ago, in broad daylight, I saw a guy with his hands wrapped around a crying woman's neck, which didn't help my attitude toward that street.)

I believe this is the first homicide of the year in the 3rd District. I will check when I go in later on. One homicide is one too many, but compared to other parts of the city, one in 6 months, would be a welcomed reduction.

The fact that it occured at 5th & Carpenter Streets doesn't suprise me that much either. I don't think it is going to affect the housing sales in the surrounding area.

The victims name sounds familiar. I wonder what the circumstances were?

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"Simply put it is possibe to have convenience if you want to tolerate insecurity, but if you want security, you must be prepared for inconvenience"
General Benjamin W. Chidlaw December 12, 1954

Someone crying made you feel awkward?

alternately: strangulation

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SITUATION: MOISTURIZED
thor must be failing -

Ah, didn't read that quite right.

I'm relatively new to the neighborhood, but I have to say in my 7 months here so far there are really no streets that make me feel uncomfortable except for the borders of the housing PJ (5th from wash to christian, christian from 5th to 3rd). Everything else feels fine to me.

I'll give an update on the robberies later on.

But I have a question. Did you do anything when you saw the guy with his hands wrapped around a crying women's neck? Call 911, yell, etc.

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"Simply put it is possibe to have convenience if you want to tolerate insecurity, but if you want security, you must be prepared for inconvenience"
General Benjamin W. Chidlaw December 12, 1954

Agreed. The problems around there come from RCA and the satellite individuals who are around squatting in abandoned houses on 5th and behind them on Reese St.. The problem, like everywhere else, is drugs (not to mention the obvious poverty) I live right in the area and have never had any problems with anyone on Carpenter Street itself.

There has actually been a surprising amount of new construction in that area. If RCA could be stabilized/better managed/better policed, I have no reason to doubt that Carpenter would continue to improve. That's a big if, though.

RCA is run in a piss-poor manner and South Narcotics Div. needs to take down the drug trade that is going on in that joint. It’s unbelievable that the residents of QV (and the residents of RCA who are trying to lead a decent, normal life) should have to put up with the crap that emanates from the premises. RCA is nothing more than broken promise that was made to QV years ago when plans were made to rebuild the entire complex. Where is the playground? Where is the youth center? Where are all the residents who are making 60% or median income who were supposed to be mixed in with the lower income residents? Where is the security that one would think a private management firm would provide for such a complex?

QVNA or QV neighbors should band together and sue the management company for endangering the lives of RCA residents and the residents in the surrounding community. Bullets fired by some sh*t-for-brains kid at 4th and Christian or 5th and Carpenter don't magically stop at the street corner.

The pisser is that things had been getting better for years (and maybe the trend is still an upward one despite this killing) but now 3rd District is going to pull the police presence they’ve periodically had on 5th. There should be a constant presence there and at 4th and Christian, and there should be narcotics sweeps of the complex. I bet you a million bucks the residents who are afraid would welcome it and the only people that would have a problem with it would be the bad apples.

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"I don't know why we are here, but I'm pretty sure that it is not in order to enjoy ourselves." - Ludwig Wittgenstein

When I was at the scene I overheard that the victim may have robbed someone at some point and this was payback. I doubt anyone there really knew what they were talking about, so that is probably BS

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"I don't know why we are here, but I'm pretty sure that it is not in order to enjoy ourselves." - Ludwig Wittgenstein

Nice thought but unrealistic. For example, several years ago I approached QVNA to find out how I could go about trying to get the Chinese Take-Out place fined or closed as a nuisance. QVNA was completely unwilling to "take on" the RCA residents, and when I raised the issue at a QVNA meeting that some RCA residents were attending (because of a different item on the agenda), I was accused of being a racist because, to hear them tell it, they would all STARVE if denied easy access to shrimp fried rice (btw, has anyone ever seen any chinese food actually being sold there?) and that if I was entitled to have New Wave and Dimitris a block from my house, they were just as entitled to have a their little slice of eatery heaven a block away.

No, seriously, that was the argument.

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---Shosh

You're right that QVNA is unwilling to ruffle feathers amongst the RCA residents, partly because the Southwark Development Corporation (the resident board) is their only link the the residents in the complex, and partly because of the racial tension between RCA residents and the surrounding area. Believe me, if I was the QVNA exec. director, I would not relish the thought of trying to work with SDC on much of anything.

I guess I was thinking more of an effort aimed at the company that manages the place. The unique and "inspired" idea to make the housing 51% owned by the residents instead of PHA means that the people in the surrounding neighborhood don't really have a city government branch to complain to. All that can be done is to pressure the corporation that "manages" the premises and try and force them to hire security, work more closely with the PPD, set up an anonymous information tip line, etc.

We're all paying because some private corporate interest is content to sit back and take City, State, and Federal subsidies, yet at the same time unwilling to do anything to protect the law abiding residents of the complex or the neighbors surrounding it.

So they updated their lease so that it has more teeth in terms of evicting people. Big deal. If people are not being reported and caught, how can they be evicted under the clauses in the lease?

The whole thing is just really frustrating.

On another note, I do find it interesting that on the two corners that have had some of the most violence, there is a Chinese take-out joint and a Korean convenience store (or as I like to call it a Korean ghetto cigarette, fried food, and and juice hug bunker)

Maybe the drugs and violence are simply linked to poor nutrition

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"I don't know why we are here, but I'm pretty sure that it is not in order to enjoy ourselves." - Ludwig Wittgenstein